This invention relates to the process of producing carotenoid concentrates and has particular but not exclusive application to the process of producing carotene concentrates from palm oil.
Carotenoids are the principal oil soluble yellow to orange red pigments found in plants and animals. Generally, there are two classes of carotenoids, that is the carotenes and xanthophylls. Carotenes are hydrocarbon carotenoids while xanthophylls are oxygenated carotenoids. Carotenoids are highly unsaturated compounds and are easily decomposed by heat, light and oxygen.
The more widely known carotenes are the alpha-, beta- and gamma-carotenes and lycopene. Some of the carotenes are precursors of vitamin A. Beta-carotene is a precusor of vitamin A and has also been shown to inhibit tumor progression, hence reduces cancer formation. As the carotenes are natural compounds with vitamin A property, they are widely used in commercial applications in the pharmaceutical and nutritional products.
The most important sources of carotenes are from vegetables, fruits and vegetable oil such as red palm oil. Among these sources, palm oil is the richest source of carotenes. The orange red color of palm oil is due to the presence of the carotenes. The concentration of carotenes in palm oil can range from 500 ppm to 3000 ppm, depending on the species of the palm fruit from which the oil is obtained. The commercial red palm oil contains about 500-700 ppm of carotenes of which alpha- and beta-carotene formed up to 90% of the total carotenes. So far commercial production of natural carotenes comes mainly from carrots, while commercial extraction of carotenes from palm oil is not very successful.
Some of the common techniques used in the recovery of carotenes from palm oil are saponification followed by extraction, adsorbent method, extraction by selective solvents, crystallization and molecular distillation of carotenes from the oil. In most of these techniques, large scale production of the carotenes from palm oil will be very expensive and involves too many steps in the process.